The Council of the Gods

Der Rat der Gtter The Council of the Gods is an East German blackandwhite film, directed by Kurt Maetzig. It was released in 1950.

Friedrich Wolf and his Soviet coauthor, Phillip Gecht, began writing the script in the summer of 1948, shortly after the end of the IG Farben Trial. They used many original documents from the judicial process, but mainly relied of Richard Saslys book IG Farben. Another event which influenced their work was the explosion that destroyed BASFs chemical plant in Ludwigshafen and caused 280 deaths atJuly 1948, which was combined into the plots ending. Wolf later told that the title, The Council of the Gods, was inspired by the divine assembly that closed the Odyssey IG Farbens directors were the gods that run the affairs while the common mortals bled and died on the field, like in the Homerian myth. The author told that his work was to reveal the gods and the machinations behind the curtains. He was also determined to discredit Germanys old elites, both due to personal convictions and the ideological requirements of the Socialist Unity Party.The characters in Wolfs story were modeled on the real directors of IG Farben, and even their names sounded much alike the films archvillain, privy councillor Mauch, was based on Carl Krauch. Wolf sought a director to create the film himself, and eventually chose Kurt Maetzig. The authors son, Konrad Wolf, served as an assistantdirector. The work on The Council of the Gods lasted for two years. Maetzig later claimed that the film was made as a documentary feature film while the characters were basically fictional, it was based on real events. He maintained that he viewed the IG Farben trial, that was run only by the US, as the beginning of the rift between the wartime Allies and to an extent even of the Cold War, and tried to depict it as such in the film. ........

Source: Wikipedia